


company

by marchh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cats, Gen, Post S4, and some small dead animals because of the cats, mycroft needs soft friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 01:57:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17878916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchh/pseuds/marchh
Summary: Mycroft accumulates a worrying number of cats.





	1. Chapter 1

“Sherlock,” Mycroft calls out, following barefooted, too determined not to lose sight to take the time to put on slippers. “Sherlock, where do you think you’re going?”

 

There’s no answer, of course there isn’t. 

 

Mycroft follows him to the door, then frowns as Sherlock jumps instead toward the window. The little pest has figured out how to work Mycroft’s new locks, of course he has. 

 

To his mild surprise, Sherlock unlatches the lock and proceeds to, with some difficulty, nudge the window open. It takes considerable effort, but it is helped along by the second cat, from the exterior of the house. 

 

Mycroft watches, dumbfounded, as his new pet cat effortlessly exploits a flaw in the security measures he’d designed himself. Ah, well, he hadn’t expected any potential unwanted visitors to have gotten his own cat on side. Perhaps he should have.

 

“And who is your new friend?” Mycroft asks, hands on hips. “I don’t suppose I warrant an introduction?”

 

He gives Sherlock a look, reprimanding expression on his face, which Sherlock not-so-subtly avoids meeting. Instead, it butts heads with the new tabby and the two of them trot off toward the kitchen. 

 

Mycroft debates following to watch, or letting them be as he finishes his book. Curiosity gets the better of him.

 

.

 

Sherlock is a ball of dark charcoal fluff. Mycroft had found him three days ago, lying amongst the roses, soaked from the storm. He’d thought it some debris, or a dead rat at first. 

 

The cat was stuck, and Mycroft didn’t want to give too much thought about how it had gotten into that position. He discovered any injuries were only minor, and within a day the cat was full of energy, poking its nose where Mycroft tried to keep it out, sticking its paws into everything. 

 

He’d decided then that he was keeping it, and gave it a name.

 

.

 

Sherlock is walking the entirety of the kitchen space, turning toward the tabby every once in a while, as if giving a house tour. He shows the tabby, a smaller tom, where Mycroft keeps the biscuits, and Mycroft, mouth open, witnesses the trick Sherlock’d discovered, in moving the toaster closer to the fridge so that he could jump at such an angle that knocked the cabinet door open.

 

“You little sneak!” Mycroft can’t help but say. The two cats turn to him, relatively unbothered, and blink simultaneously.

 

Mycroft sighs. He’d better resign himself to caring for two cats instead of one now.

 

.

 

Mycroft follows around the stout little tabby around the rest of the day, not so close to be on its heels, but close enough. 

 

It’s not because the cat is unusual, quite the contrary. Sherlock is the strange one, constantly peering over Mycroft’s shoulder as Mycroft reads, as if Sherlock could comprehend the words as well, tapping his shoulder to urge Mycroft to turn the page at times. Sherlock is also enamoured with Mycroft’s sock drawer. He doesn’t even try to sit  _ in  _ the drawer, just looks at the neat rows of wool fondly and kneads them lightly every once in a while. 

 

No, the new cat is very much what Mycroft would have expected from a cat, down to the leaving of a dead mouse next to the cat bed by the end of that first day he “moved in.” 

 

“I think I will name you John,” Mycroft muses aloud, leaning against the doorway as he watches the two furry menaces swat around at an unfortunate moth.

 

.

 

Mycroft finds a small, dead bird on his windowsill on Tuesday. Something pings at the periphery of his consciousness but he chooses to dismiss it. He knows it wasn’t John, because John doesn’t like to leave his trophies outside.

 

He’s stalling against the inevitable disposal of the dead bird when Sherlock hops onto the kitchen counter, and then Mycroft’s shoulder, so he can lean down to look at the bird, furry little cheek right next to Mycroft’s.

 

Sherlock tongue darts out, a mimicry of licking its lips, and then quick as anything it takes the little bird in its mouth and darts back into the house.

 

Mycroft stares at the empty spot where the bird was, trying not to acknowledge what just happened.

 

“Oh, no,” he says, resigned.

 

.

 

Sherlock yowls and yowls and yowls when Mycroft tosses the bird corpse away and locks the empty closet up so that Sherlock can’t perform his little “dissections” in it anymore.

 

He sticks his tail up and puffs into a great big ball of sulk, turning away and giving Mycroft the cold shoulder just as quickly, refusing to let Mycroft come close the rest of the day.

 

Then the next day, there is another bird.

 

Mycroft gets rid of it before Sherlock can see, but in doing so he’s come around the house to the garbage bins, where he finds a sweet looking calico watching him with bright eyes, sitting on a tree branch with its tail swishing back and forth.

 

“Do I have you to thank for the birds, Miss?” he says sweetly, with a sarcastic smile. The cat meows, and he takes that to be in the affirmative. Mycroft makes a big show of tying up the plastic bag in which the dead bird sits, and throwing it into the garbage. He puts the lid back on the bin with a thunk, letting the new stray know, in no uncertain terms, the birds were not welcomed.

 

There is a dead bird on the windowsill the next day.

 

.

 

Mycroft tsks at the calico pacing back and forth on his windowsill.

 

“You’re a regular little surgeon, aren’t you, Doctor?” he says, taking a sip of his perfectly brewed tea. It keeps pacing, ignoring Mycroft, until all of a sudden it freezes, mid-step, completely still.

 

Mycroft frowns, peering out into the yard behind it. There’s nothing in particular that he can see.

 

“Ah.” He turns around to look over his shoulder. Sherlock has entered the kitchen, and the calico has darted off so that only the furry top of its head is still visible. It spies on Sherlock from afar, and Sherlock, in turn, seeing Mycroft at the window where he usually collects his bodies, practically scowls.

 

“And what do you need birds for, anyway?” Mycroft asks. Good Lord, he is talking to cats. “You act as if I don’t feed you.”

 

Sherlock meows as if Mycroft indeed never fed him. Loudly and emphatically, with little gestures of the paw, before stalking out of the kitchen. He comes back, once, to throw Mycroft a dark look.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Andrea knocks.

 

If he doesn’t let her in, she thinks there is a chance she may not be able to remain professional about this. She’s glad for the shoes she chose to wear, but all the same, the long, cobblestone path up to Mycroft Holmes’s secret little getaway has been hell on her feet.

 

The man himself appears in the little shaded sliver of glass beside the door. He peeks out at her, and then hides away.

 

“I can see you!” Andrea shouts in disbelief. The nerve!

 

After a long, hesitant moment of waiting, she hears a lock work, and then another, and there must be seven separate locks on that thing but eventually it does open, and Andrea comes face to face with Mycroft Holmes himself.

 

“Hello,” she says, hurriedly trying to pull together her composure. He has grown a  _ beard.  _

 

“Andrea,” he says with a greeting nod, not moving from the doorway. She pushes past, and he’s polite enough to let her.

 

There is a very small ball of black fur cupped in one of his hands, she notices, as she looks him up and down for signs of harm. 

 

He looks fine. More than fine, really. He looks comfortable in a way she hadn’t known Mycroft Holmes could look comfortable. Really the only thing he seems agitated by is her - Andrea is the one out of place here, in her Government Agent pantsuit.

 

“Why don’t we talk in the parlor?” he says quietly, cocking his head for her to follow. She does.

 

.

 

Andrea stares at the little black ball Mycroft transfers into a small, scarf-lined basket on the tablet. It is a  _ cat -  _ no, a  _ kitten _ . 

 

“That’s Eurus,” he says, nodding toward the cat. Andrea’s head snaps toward him, eyes wide. He has  _ lost it _ , adopting this little baby of a creature, this malleable blank slate, naming it after his  _ sister.  _ Replacing his sister?

 

Andrea blows on her cup of black tea, a London Fog blend she recognizes as the one she keeps in her bottom desk drawer which he nicks when he’s feeling particularly maudlin.

 

Then she realizes he isn’t - he’s prepared this for her.  _ She  _ is the guest, and this is  _ her  _ favorite. The dynamics are different now, and she shifts uncomfortably in her chair, having lost her footing.

 

“What are you doing here?” he asks without preamble. It saves her from spitting out something inane like ‘how are you holding up?’ How indeed! After his own sister tried to orchestrate his death and torture through a series of traumatizing events, after his own brother abandoned him both physically and emotionally, after his own  _ mother _ said it was all his own fault, while his father sat there and said nothing. 

 

She glares anyway.

 

“You left without saying  _ anything  _ to  _ anyone _ , the only notice a sheet of paper left on your desk, in your own hand reading, and I quote verbatim, ‘For personal reasons, I will be mysteriously disappearing-”

 

Mycroft frowns, saying “I didn’t write that.” She ignores it.

 

“-for an indeterminate amount of time. Do not look for me.’” She picks her cup up, then sets it down, unable to stay her hands.

 

“I thought something had happened to you,” she says in a much more level voice. 

 

He raises his eyebrows as if that were the understatement of the century, watching the steam rise from his own cup.

 

“Here to drag me back, then, kicking and screaming? Security risk and all that, is it?” he says without malice.

 

“No.” She looks stricken. Andrea has been genuinely worried. “No one knows I’m here.”

 

Mycroft looks surprised, but before he can comment she adds, “I’ve worked for you long enough to know how to get around unseen.” She has. 

 

“But believe me, I would not be alone if word had gotten out,” she adds, a shadow falling over her face. She’s sure they want to see him, Sherlock especially, but she’s not sure Mycroft would want to see  _ them _ . She hadn’t realized she fell in that same category.

 

He sees this too, but she can tell he wouldn’t know how to respond. They’re not close, in a personal sense, they are employer and employee. She may not have hurt him, but neither did the driver, and why would he presume to be welcomed in to Mycroft Holmes’s hideaway?

 

“How did you find me anyway?”

 

“No one besides me, not even your brother, knows where you  _ really _ get your furniture,” she tells him. He winces, just slightly. An indulgence that gave him away. 

 

Andrea takes another gulp of her tea, tepid now and just as unwelcoming as the situation itself. 

 

“Look, I only wanted to know you were doing well, so that at the very least I can make some excuse to keep-”

 

Mycroft isn’t listening, distracted by something out of the corner of his eye. He turns abruptly, yelling “Jim!”

 

Andrea turns, too, just as quickly. Her heart rate spikes, expecting to come face to face with a ghost, or worse, an act of treason on her boss’s part (former boss?!). Instead, she sees a cat fling itself off a tall standing lamp, landing with great  _ oomph _ into one of the sofa cushions.

 

“Jim?” she asks, disbelieving.

 

“Mm.” Mycroft nods, giving the happy, purring manic a reproachful look. “He’s vicious for his size.”

 

“And there’s Lestrade.” Mycroft points to a light colored cat licking a smaller, dark one on the top of its head. Oh, the mother hen of the group. The smaller one shakes him off, and trots over to examine the newcomer, that is, Andrea herself. 

 

It approaches her legs, and she stands, taking a step back. It follows, undeterred, until Mycroft scoops it up and holds it close to his chest.

 

“Let me guess,” Andrea says with a frown as she watches the dark, fuzzy cat extend its foreleg against Mycroft’s chin in an effort to fight off cuddles. “This one’s named Sherlock.”

 

Mycroft brightens.

 

“Oh, you think it’s a good fit too?”

 

_ “Mister Holmes _ ,” Andrea says, half exasperation, half plea. “You can’t stay here forever. With- with your little  _ petting zoo. _ ”

 

“I very well can too,” he says snippily, like a  _ child. _

 

She’s about to pinch the bridge of her nose when she stops herself, horrified at which habits have rubbed off. She vows then, and not for the first time, to not become the sort of workaholic her boss is.

 

In any case, she knows she’s overstayed her welcome. Andrea picks up her bag, and her coat.

 

“Now that I know you’re alive, we can call off any and all search parties. You have vacation days, if you’ll remember. You should use them. Please remember to eat, so as to not let yourself waste away in bed, only to be eaten by the cats yourself. And don’t worry about having to answer questions about where you’ve been, that is what you hired me for,” Andrea says.

 

She stops in the doorway.

 

“Take as long as you need. I’ll handle the inquiries, and keep them guessing,” she says. 

 

“Thank you,” he says, soft and quiet, not looking up from the pile of kittens on his lap. Andrea smiles at him anyway, and closes the door behind her. 

  
  
  



End file.
